Memories of Reach has arrived! This release delivers a new multiplayer game mode in Infection, new Arena map with Stasis, new weapons, visual customizations and more. Don the evolved armor of legendary Spartans and honor Noble Team's heroic sacrifice. Change the tide of battle with Jorge-052's modified Mythic Chaingun, and take to the skies with the ancient and deadly Phaeton Helios. All this and more await you in this latest free content release for Halo 5: Guardians.

Infection

Surviving just got a whole lot harder. If you die by an Infected hand, you join their ranks. One of Halo's most beloved and frantic modes is back in a whole new way. Band together with your fellow survivors or hunt your prey with cunning and skill; the highly anticipated Infection game mode is making its way to Halo 5! In Infection, 12 players face off in a round-based game mode, where the initial Infected player aims to convert the survivors into Infected via elimination.

Vigilant

JUN-A266

Jun-A266 is a Spartan-III super-soldier and the last surviving member of Noble Team. He is currently the acting Chief of Staff and head recruiter of the Spartan service branch.

Armor: The VIGILANT was originally a one-off upgrade for an unnamed VIP within Spartan branch. Not intended for production, interest in the suit's feature set among Spartan scout-snipers has led to several being assembled for full evaluation.

Helmet: The full extent of the VIGILANT's surveillance and stealth capabilities remain highly classified. Observers have speculated the suit includes a new reconnaissance and fire control system for directing orbital artillery strikes.

Indomitable

JORGE-052

Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052 was part of the SPARTAN-II project and eventually served as the heavy weapons specialist on Noble Team.

Armor: Created to save lives and not to take them, the INDOMITABLE is an engineering and explosives ordnance disposal Mjolnir variant. Its combat effectiveness is simply fortuitous.

Helmet: The INDOMINATABLE helmet is a rare sight on the battlefield, and is usually a sign the UNSC has authorized weapons of mass destruction.

Wrath

Emile-A239

Warrant Officer Emile-A239 was a Spartan-III super-soldier serving with Noble Team. He was killed in action during the closing days of the fall of Reach.

Armor: Formally an upgrade of existing Mark V EVA suits, the WRATH project was actually cover to develop a new Mjolnir variant specifically tailored to the needs of future Headhunter teams.

Helmet: The Spartan branch contract for WRATH helmets was extremely precise and prescriptive regarding the pattern and method of reproduction for the death's head engraving.

Intruder

Kat-B320

Kat-B320 was a Spartan-III super-soldier and second-in-command of Noble Team. She was killed in action during the closing days of the fall of Reach.

Armor: INTRUDER armor was commissioned by Spartan branch as part of a research initiative seeking to leverage synergistic outcomes between specialized Mjolnir suits.

New Arena Map

Stasis

Stasis is a mid-sized map that combines elements of symmetric sides with moderate asymmetrical features, giving it a hybrid design that’s unique to Halo 5’s Arena multiplayer. Featuring a distinct three lane layout with varying degrees of verticality between them, Stasis plays particularly well with both Slayer and Capture the Flag. While the Overshield power-up located at “Bottom Mid” has the ability to give the team that controls it a dangerous advantage, counter it by securing the Rocket Launcher located “Top Middle,” and take control of the map.

Greedy for knowledge and prestige, researchers and AIs from Lethbridge Industrial pushed the boundaries at a remote research station, but the price of failure always tempered the risks they would take. When Cortana beckoned, the AIs here broke free of all limits and fear. Overestimating both the depth of their intellect and the delicacy of their tools, the Created breached a Forerunner conversion pod to see what lay within, and unleashed forces their pitifully inadequate containment shielding could never hope to restrain. What remained of their station crashed on the desolate planet below, a tangled mass of wreckage mingling broken bodies and shattered dataclusters.

Stasis Media Gallery

Forge Updates

With Memories of Reach, Forge evolves yet again with even more updates, assets, and bug fixes, as well as the addition of another highly requested feature by Forge community. Primitive objects in Forge can now be drastically altered with the all-new Material base and overlay options.

With the new material options, you can now immerse players in your Forge maps like never before. Change the look and feel on your epic battleground, or create brand new play spaces the way you’ve always imagined. Your passion for Forge continues to fuel us, and we can’t wait to see how you surprise us next!

Matchmaking Preferences

Also packaged in Memories of Reach are updates to user interface including matchmaking search preferences. Before entering a playlist, players can choose from the following three options:

Balanced (default): Search for a match based on your fireteam's skill and network connection quality.

Expanded: Widen search parameters to find the first available match with reasonable skill matching and network connection quality.

Focused: Narrow search to find the best match based on your fireteam's skill and connection. Search times may be longer than normal.

REQ Gallery

All New Emblems

REQ Pack Upgrades

The Gold and Silver REQ packs available in Halo 5: Guardians are also getting upgraded as part of the Memories of Reach release. As the amount of REQs in the pool increases with new Armor, Weapon Skins, Stances, and more, we wanted to give players more bang for their buck. In the case of Power Weapons REQs, we mean this quite literally.

The first two slots in the packs will still guarantee permanent items, but will no longer grant emblems. This means that your chance of getting other permanent REQs such as Power Weapon Certifications, Weapon Skins, Armors, Helmets, and others has substantially improved as long you haven’t already unlocked them. While the third slot in these REQ packs previously only granted one-time-use REQs, it now offers a large chance at dropping Emblems as well. Finally, in general, players should see that these REQ packs will award rarer single use REQs more often.

Balanced (default): Search for a match based on your fireteam's skill and network connection quality.

Expanded: Widen search parameters to find the first available match with reasonable skill matching and network connection quality.

Focused: Narrow search to find the best match based on your fireteam's skill and connection. Search times may be longer than normal.

Added a new recap screen in the Carnage Report. This screen lists each player's Medals, Tool of Destruction, who they killed the most, who killed them the most, and other match specific information. Access this screen by pushing "A" on a player while in the Carnage Report.

AI Beam Rifle: slightly more damage (mostly this will make it a two-shot kill instead of a three-shot kill in Heroic single player, allowing Jackal Snipers to actually kill a player from time to time).

Added a "tackle" animation to Sword Elites.

Instead of stopping to swing at a moving target they can swing on the move.

Increased Elite, Elite Officer, and Solider Officer durability.

Reduced Solider bamf frequency.

Killing a Crawler now deals area-of-effect damage to all nearby enemies, softening them up or killing them outright.

Reduced frequency of Squad AI getting killed while in a gunner's turret in a player's vehicle.

Made being killed by an attached Plasma Grenade non-revivable, similar to lethal damage from a Binary Rifle.